Lie of the Needle(59)

            I gritted my teeth. Well, if it was, he wouldn’t want to scare me. I was here to try to find out who did this to him.

            I went out of the house through the front door, turning the lock on the doorknob and pulling it shut behind me. I drove over to the parallel street in the development and glanced up at the house I estimated to be directly across from the vacant one.

            Sally McIntire was standing at the uncurtained bedroom window, staring out with a numb expression on her face, wearing nothing but a bra and underpants.





Chapter Ten




                         That afternoon, I called Ruth. Maybe I’d been too hasty to judge, and maybe there was a good explanation for the encounter I’d witnessed in town. She sounded receptive on the phone, so I told her I’d come over after work and bring dinner.

            Joe was taking a jewelry-making class on Tuesday nights. Recently he’d gotten into making miniature dollhouse furniture, and apparently this would help improve his skills. He said he’d grab something to eat at home before the class.

            I picked up a broccoli-and-cheese stromboli from Pop’s, together with a green salad and a couple of iced teas.

            When Ruth answered the door, I had to stifle a gasp. She looked like she’d been crying for hours. Her perfect eyeliner had run down her face, making her look like one of those Pierrot clowns with crosses for eyes, and her hair was sticking up as if she’d run her fingers through it a thousand times. I set the bag down on the foyer floor and folded her into my arms.

            “Oh, Ruth, I’m so sorry about Stanley. This must be such a terrible time for you.”

            “It’s not that—I mean, it is—but something else has happened. Something even more terrible.”

            She was shaking so badly that I helped her into the expansive light-filled living room and onto one of the silk chairs near the fireplace. The room was so massive that there was space for three couches in the center, each holding rows of perfectly primped pillows in a muted mix of yellow and cream plaids and florals. A square glass coffee table holding a Chinese vase and a stack of oversize books sat on a pale yellow wool rug, and sage-and-white striped silk drapes adorned the tall windows.

            I knelt down in front of her and took her hands in mine. “Ruth, what is it? For God’s sake, what’s happened?”

            “I’m ruined. Completely ruined!” She sank her head back against the chair. “Oh, Daisy, I’ve been such a foolish woman. So gullible.”

            Was she talking about her reputation? Had someone else besides me seen her in town?

            “Look, Ruth, I don’t quite know how to say this, but are you referring to the man you were walking with in Sheepville the other day? I—um—couldn’t help but notice you.”

            She nodded miserably. “He wasn’t just my lover, he was my financial planner. Edward Flint. The creep who’s run off with most of my money!”

            Her lover?

            I got up, painfully, my knees cracking as I did so. Wow. If she did kill Stanley for his money, the irony was that now it was gone.

            “And that’s not all,” Ruth moaned. “I invested the Historical Society’s money in the same damn fund.” She broke down sobbing again.

            “What?”

            Now I had to sink into a chair. Ruth was a brilliant fund-raiser, and we’d entrusted her with the treasurer duties. “Are you sure the money has disappeared? That there’s not just some accounting mistake?”

            Ruth nodded miserably. “I’d recommended Edward to my friends, too. This afternoon I got a call from one of them. He was getting a bad feeling that something was not quite right about the quarterly reports, and so he went over to Edward’s place to talk to him. It was completely cleaned out. His office, too. And, of course, all of our accounts. We called the police, but who knows if they’ll ever find the creep? He could be in Nicaragua by now. The last time I saw him was that day in Sheepville.”